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Robert Rotenberg's latest whodunit sets up an uncannily corrupt Toronto

Is the mayor of Toronto a murderer? Does the chief of police have a secret so dark he must kill to keep it from the world?

No, we’re not talking about you-know-you or what’s-his-name, but characters in Robert Rotenberg’s latest thriller, Stranglehold.

Robert Rotenberg, right, at an author's reading

Robert Rotenberg's Strangle Hold, Touchstone, 358 pages, $19.99

In Robert Rotenberg's whodunit, Stranglehold, the mayor's name is Hap Charlton. Rotenberg's publisher had fake election signs and buttons created to hand out at the book launch. Here's one on Rotenberg's lawn with his dog Fudge.

“I’m not trying to do a roman à clef,” the lawyer-turned-author insists. Indeed, the most recognizable element of his novel is Toronto itself, the city where Rotenberg was born, raised and still lives.

“Toronto is like a gifted teenager that won’t do its homework,” he says. “It’s a spoiled city, still very immature. It used to be ahead of the world, now we’re behind. There’s an underlying sense of anxiety. So the first thing you do is lash out.”

One way or another, lashing out is what Rotenberg’s books are all about. Stranglehold, his fourth, features the same cast of characters as the first three, each of which explores people and parts of the city not normally visited by tourists.

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In Stranglehold, that includes the motel strip on Kingston Rd. in Scarborough, where a high-profile Crown prosecutor, Jennifer Raglan, has been found dead in bed.

When police show up in a witness’s apartment, only one elevator is working and the signal lights are out.

“Scarberia never disappoints,” one detective says to the other. “We might as well walk up.”

“Sixty-eight percent of the people out here live in rental housing,” the cop continues. “Most of it built in the ’60s.You wonder why there’s so much crime?”

Later, the action moves downtown, to Queen and Sherbourne where the streets are lined with men’s shelters and greasy spoons.

“Toronto is not a beautiful city,” Rotenberg says. “It was built by Scottish bankers to make money. The infrastructure is a signal to people that they’ve been discounted. But location tells you everything. I spend a huge amount of time thinking about where each character lives.”

Rotenberg’s characters live — and work — all over Toronto, even in the newsroom of this newspaper. But as hard as one might try to find some resemblance between the scribblers actually employed by the Star and these fictional types — an ace crime reporter and an eccentric managing editor from Britain — it’s impossible. In this case, though, fiction is definitely stranger than truth. The newspaper business being what it is these days, no journalist has time for this kind of fun anymore.

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As for Rotenberg, who has worked as a journalist and editor in Toronto and Paris, writing has always been more of an avocation than a profession. Even now he still works as a lawyer, though not as much as he once did.

“I’m not doing the big murder trials I used to do,” he admits. “These days it’s mostly rich people doing stupid things.

“But I also represent a lot of victims. I’m extremely involved with my clients and I do everything myself. It’s very rewarding work.”

Though he has enough experience to know the failings of the Canadian justice system, Rotenberg remains a believer. What does bother him, however, is the sort of vengeful minimum sentence approach espoused by the current federal government.

“People walk into my office ultra-right-wingers and leave too left-wing for the NDP,” he says. “People underestimate the power of the state.”

These days, Rotenberg spends most of his time writing. Despite having published four books in the last five years, he feels he’s “just getting started.”

“I’ve always wanted to write about Toronto,” he adds. “It’s my big sandbox where I get to move the characters around. Writing is all about conflict and there’s plenty of that in this city.”

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